Tag Archive: Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan

And with this, we close the book on the summer drama season of 2012. Can Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan (浪花少年探偵団) pull a surprise strong finish, ending the season on a high note, or will it underperform as it has throughout the past few months?

The case continues from the last episode where a twenty year-old student dies, Nana’s mother falls from a balcony, and Shinobu (Tabe Mikako) decides the two cases are related. Mere moments after she makes this connection, the culprit is once again at Nana’s apartment building, and both Teppei (Hamada Tatsuomi) and Nana decide to chase him, getting themselves deep into trouble. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about, Shinobu also has to consider Shindou (Koike Teppei)’s proposal to her.

It’s funny, then, that Shinobu looks almost cheerful rather than worried as she drives in pursuit of the vehicle with Teppei, Nana, and the criminal.

Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan (浪花少年探偵団) is best when it puts the mystery first, so my hopes were kindled when this episode opened with the tragedy:

But then it immediately jumped to Shinobu (Tabe Mikako) doing Christmas shopping with her mother. They bump into Honma (Yamamoto Koji), who tries to get Shinobu to have an extra-special dinner with him.

Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan (浪花少年探偵団) showed a bit more promise in the last episode. Will we continue to see strong plots, leading up to a big finish? The beginning offers up some hope:

Normally, we start with some sort of domestic scene with Shinobu (Tabe Mikako), but here we begin immediately with the crime, and our two police detectives – Urushizaki and Shindou (Koike Teppei). The victim was bashed with a croquet mallet – certainly a novel weapon. The presumed attacker was an old woman defending herself from an intruder.

She was understandably nervous about intruders, because she had recently taken out 4,000,000 yen (about $50,000) from the bank, and had thought she was being followed after that withdrawal. The money was for the fee for an elderly home.

Seeing the preview of this episode of Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan (浪花少年探偵団 – Naniwa Juvenile Detective Team), I had hopes that it would continue building on the better aspects of last week’s episode. The goal here is to reduce the subplots that never go anywhere (especially the love square involving Honma and Haruna) and maximize the participation of characters who actually try to solve mysteries like the Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan, who are often marginalized, and police detective Urushizaki.

As it did last time, the show begins with Shinobu (Tabe Mikako) facing issues at home, with her mother distraught:

The reason this time is truly trivial – a lucky charm.

Thankfully, we move to school life, where a letter from a former student – Nakanishi Yuta – gets the class excited.